There’s a reason they put a canal here.
Panama is the thinnest sliver of the Americas, the most logical place to put the world’s most important shipping route, the isthmic keyhole from the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific.
And as the locks of the Panama Canal open and close throughout the day the waters that flow between the Caribbean Sea, Lake Gatun and the Pacific are a daily reminder; this is two worlds in one.
Indeed, Panama is very much a place of dual identity: at once Caribbean and Pacific; a modern financial hub that’s also home to some of the most pristine coastal cays in the hemisphere.
And Panama City is the perfect example of this dichotomous personality: at one corner, it’s a forest of towering, newly-built skyscrapers; but at the city’s edge, there’s a centuries-old jewel.